Journey to the Microcosmos S06E04 · There's More Than Coral at the Coral Farm

Overview

When you’re in the business of hunting for microbes, sometimes you have to send some weird emails. That’s why James, our master of microscopes, sat down one day to send his own strange request to the people at Coralaxy, a coral farm in Germany.

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Subtitles

Episodes

1. 1 1. Giant Microscopic Cannibals2022-03-28 · 11mEvery experiment has to start somewhere. This one began with a container full of dying microbes, and the five cute, pink ciliates called blepharisma that James, our master of micro
2. 2 2. How Many Cells Are in a Microscopic Animal?2022-04-04 · 10mWe’re starting this episode out with a question that we’re never going to have a good answer for: how many cells do animals have? How could we ever hope to count all those cells in
3. 3 3. The Remarkable Mystery of Land Plants2022-04-11 · 12mSomewhere around 470 million years ago, something happened that shouldn’t have been particularly striking. An algae found its way onto land. This algae turned the lands of this ear
4. 4 4. There's More Than Coral at the Coral Farm2022-04-25 · 10mWhen you’re in the business of hunting for microbes, sometimes you have to send some weird emails. That’s why James, our master of microscopes, sat down one day to send his own str
5. 5 5. We Finally Found the Elusive Bristle Worm!2022-05-02 · 9mWe’ve spent most of our journey through the microcosmos seeking out the organisms that are too small to see with just the human eye. The bacteria, the ciliates, the tardigrades. Pa
6. 6 6. Putting Coral Under the Microscope2022-05-09 · 10mJames, our master of microscopes, recently received a package from a coral farm in Germany. We’ve explored some of the microscopic creatures and bristle worms that were living and
7. 7 7. How Brownian Motion Helped Prove the Existence of Atoms2022-05-16 · 10mWe’re going to see a type of motion over and over again because it’s all over the microcosmos, found in and around many different types of organisms. And this kind of random motion
8. 8 8. How to Not Kill an Extremely Rare Microbe2022-05-23 · 12mFor an activity that mostly involves sitting and staring, microscopy is a surprisingly high stakes task. On the other side of the lens are drops full of potential, a multitude of w
9. 9 9. Mouthless Parasites That Make Their Home In Worm Guts2022-05-30 · 10mYou’ve heard those worm horror stories, right? Stories of painful stomach cramps or diarrhea or nausea that eventually turns out to be caused by some worms that have taken up resid
10. 10 10. Can This Baby Rotifer Escape Before It’s Eaten Alive?2022-06-13 · 17mThis Loxodes magnus is large, so large that it was able to eat a rotifer, those funny animals we often see getting bullied by their single-celled neighbors. Except, that rotifer is
11. 11 11. Bryozoa: Moss Animals That Are Defined by Their Butts2022-06-27 · 10mAt first glance, they seem a bit more like plants or a series of flowers with thin, elegant petals. But no, they are indeed an animal. One that has the dubious honor of being defin
12. 12 12. Getting to the Root of Nitrogen Fixation2022-07-04 · 9mJames, our master of microscopes, is not a farmer. He is, to put it simply, fascinated by microbes. And that may lead him to strange places and cause him to grow tanks full of weir
13. 13 13. A Two-Headed Ciliate and Other Adorable, Dead, and Extinct Things2022-07-11 · 12mThe theme of today's episode is pretty simple: things we never thought we’d be showing you, but here we are.
14. 14 14. The Aquatic Snails That Leave a Path of Destruction2022-07-18 · 9mIt’s often said that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. And surely there is no greater proof of that than the home of our master of microscopes, James. All along the
15. 15 15. These Squishy Dots Move So Fast You Might Miss Them2022-07-25 · 10mFrom our vantage point, as relatively large organisms, it can be easy to overlook the microcosmos, because it’s simply too small to see. It floats in front of our eyes at all times
16. 16 16. Our Tardigrades Got Stuck in a German Post Office2022-08-08 · 7mTardigrades have been through a lot. They’ve been sent to the moon. They’ve had the moisture sapped out of them. At times, they’ve been in extreme heat. And at other times, they’ve
17. 17 17. These Walking Ciliates Are Frustrating2022-08-15 · 9mThe ciliates we’re going to talk about today are kind of…frustrating. At this point in our journey, we’ve gotten used to the fact that the microcosmos is an indecipherable mess at
18. 18 18. Water Mites: Sticky Dancers with Crystal Poop2022-08-22 · 10mThe microcosmos might seem like a safe place from a surprise spider attack, but it would be misleading to pretend that it’s completely free of spider-like sightings. Because even a
19. 19 19. We Accidentally Grew Crystals2022-08-29 · 12mUsually on Journey to the Microcosmos, we spend our time looking at living organisms, things like insects, plants, and microbes that move and breathe and grow and die. But today, f
20. 20 20. Ghost Fleas: Tiny See Through Cyclopses2022-09-05 · 9mDepending on your love of horror stories or your belief in the supernatural, it might be easy to convince you that lakes are full of ghosts. That as you plunge deeper into these la
21. 21 21. Bacteria That Only Want To Head North2022-09-12 · 10mWhen James first saw these bacteria, all he knew is that they came from a sample taken from a Portuguese beach. And on the slide, the bacteria were swimming in a stark line. And th
22. 22 22. The Shared Doom of Microscopic Hitchhikers2022-09-26 · 10mOur oceans and lakes are filled with copepods, a myriad of small crustacean species that might float as plankton or infect other creatures1. And as they’re living in whatever manne
23. 23 23. Kentrophoros: The Mouthless Ciliate With a Back Full of Snacks2022-10-03 · 11mThis is kentrophoros, a ciliate that James—our master of microscopes—had been searching for, receiving samples from all over the world in the hopes of finding it gliding around. Wh
24. 24 24. These Rotifers Glue Themselves Together2022-10-10 · 10mAs animals, we owe a lot to the single-celled organisms that came before us. These are the organisms that laid the chemical groundwork for how we live, from the DNA and proteins wi
25. 25 25. Why Are These Single-Celled Organisms So Large?2022-10-17
26. 26 26. Sand Is Full of Life and Death2022-11-07
27. 27 27. The 18th Century Tardigrade Debate2022-11-14
28. 28 28. Is the Mitochondria Always the Powerhouse of the Cell?2022-11-21
29. 29 29. This Extremely Rare Ciliate Has Only Been Seen Four Times2022-11-28
30. 30 30. How We Got The DNA From This Extremely Rare Ciliate2022-12-05
31. 31 31. A Microscopic Tour Through A Norwegian Fjord2022-12-12 · 10mSometimes our journey through the microcosmos feels like an expedition, a voyage filled with deep dives into the masses of organisms basking under the glow of our microscope. So wh
32. 32 32. The Illuminating Reason Perenema Curl Up Into a Ball2022-12-19 · 9mWatching this Peranema feels a bit like watching a cat waffling back and forth between whether or not it wants to take a nap. Sometimes the Peranema stretches, its body undulating
33. 33 33. The Collotheca Doesn’t Mind Eating Its Own Babies2023-01-16 · 8mImagine that this is the beginning of the last thing you’ll ever see, an empty landscape with thin lines scratched across it. But those lines suddenly sharpen and gather into a den
34. 34 34. The Indecisive Evolution of Gastrotrichs2023-01-23 · 8mThe Gastrotrich has long been a personal favorite microbe of several members of the Journey to the Microcosmos crew. But while we were able to see a lot with the microscopes we had
35. 35 35. How Electricity Brings Order To Chaos2023-01-30 · 9mScience is built on questions. So let’s start today with one: what do you think happens when you set off an electrical spark in the microcosmos?
36. 36 36. The Microcosmos Is Made of Star Stuff2023-02-06 · 8mIf you’ve been with us on our journey for a while, you’ve probably heard us say the phrase “we don’t know” a lot. The microcosmos doesn’t guarantee answers, and we’ve often found o
37. 37 37. Your Mouth Is A Cave For Microbes2023-02-13 · 9mYou may not want to think about it this way, but your mouth is really just one giant, wet cave for microbes. From the perspective of bacteria, your mouth is not a tool. It is a hom
38. 38 38. Microscopic Space Travelers2023-02-20 · 10mThis might not look like much. But every day, tiny little things like this are raining down on our planet. Each one is small, about a millimeter across. But over the course of a ye
39. 39 39. These Microbes Wear Chain Mail Made From DNA2023-02-27 · 11mThe microcosmos is not always a graceful space. Sometimes an organism just needs to get around the way it gets around, even if that means looking like a swimming elephant head with
40. 40 40. How Does Yeast Make Bread?2023-03-06 · 9mAs you’re wandering through the aisles of the grocery store, you might find your attention caught on any number of things. Frozen pizza. Cupcakes. Wine. And as delicious as all of
41. 41 41. How Do Microbes Make Decisions?2023-03-13 · 10mMicrobes are not just blobs. They are very well-evolved biological machinery, the product of eons of evolution that have exposed their ancestors and them to different homes and foo
42. 42 42. How Your Blood Keeps You Alive2023-03-20 · 8mBlood is a useful substance, not just for our life, but for our way of thinking. It signifies life, but also accompanies death. It unites those who share it, but in doing so it div
43. 43 43. Can Bacteria Eat Plastic?2023-04-03 · 11mOur world today, the one that we have constructed, feels as if it runs on plastic. It is a building block in our bags, our bottles, clothing, toys, the list could go on and on. Pla
44. 44 44. Lichen: The Mysterious Love Child of Fungi and Algae2023-04-10 · 11mA useful principle in the story of life is that you should never underestimate algae or cyanobacteria. They’ll just always manage to surprise you, and more importantly, to remind y
45. 45 45. The Microcosmos Is A Very Stressful Place2023-04-17 · 9mDo microbes ever feel fear? Or concern? Or trepidation? While they can’t exactly tell us, they probably don’t– at least not in ways that we could understand. But we can tell that t
46. 46 46. These Mites Are Probably On Your Face Right Now2023-04-24 · 11mYou might wonder why we would care if a demodex has a butthole or not. Well, we care because they live on our face.
47. 47 47. The Incredible World of Bacterial Communities2023-05-01 · 11mThese particular little green organisms show up in the background of other organism’s lives, providing pops of color among other debris. What you are looking at is not a single org
48. 48 48. The Tube-dwelling Architects Of The Microcosmos2023-05-08 · 10mEvery time we see diatoms, we have to give it to them: they’re just simply stunning. They’re single-celled and major producers of the oxygen we breathe, but the real reason we love
49. 49 49. How To Kick Off Your Microscopic Journey2023-05-15 · 10mOne of the most common questions we get asked here on Journey to the Microcosmos comes from all of you who are thinking of starting your own microscopic journeys and want a little
50. 50 50. Unboxing Our Microcosmos Microscope!2023-05-22 · 10m
51. 51 51. The Complicated Sex Lives of Hydra · 12mIf we were to write a fable to get this moral across, it would have to star the freshwater cnidarian called the hydra. Because in the hydra, the question of butts connects to the a
52. 52 52. When Is A Fungus Not A Fungus? · 11mOomycetes are one of the more unusual-looking microbes we’ve seen in the microcosmos. It looks more like a coral reef painted by an artist inspired by Gustav Klimt and a pile of tr
53. 53 53. The Cryptic Origins of Yogurt · 10mThe microcosmos is home to many unusual partnerships. Life is, after all, just relationships, each of which build upon one another like strokes of paint in an epic tableau of ecolo
54. 54 54. Why Beggiatoa Are Stuffed Full Of Sulfur · 10mThere’s a few things that give Beggiatoa away. The first is the simple serpentine shape of their bodies, and the second are those little dots inside of them. They look like bubbles
55. 55 55. We Don't Know Why Moth Wings Glow